Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [104]
His large hand stroked lightly across my stomach, warm through the thin silk of my nightdress.
“No, there. You have to press a little harder.” I took his hand and pressed the fingers downward, just above my pubic bone, where the uterus had begun to make itself obvious, a round, hard swelling a little larger than a grapefruit.
“Aye, I feel it,” he murmured. “He’s really there.” A tiny smile of awed delight tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he looked up at me, eyes sparkling. “Can ye feel him move, yet?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Another month or so, I think, from what your sister Jenny said.”
“Mmm,” he said, kissing the tiny bulge. “What d’ye think of ‘Dalhousie,’ Sassenach?”
“What do I think of ‘Dalhousie’ as what?” I inquired.
“Well, as a name,” he said. He patted my stomach. “He’ll need a name.”
“True,” I said. “Though what makes you think it’s a boy? It might just as easily be a girl.”
“Oh? Oh, aye, that’s true,” he admitted, as though the possibility had just occurred to him. “Still, why not start with the boys’ names? We could name him for your uncle who raised you.”
“Umm.” I frowned at my midsection. Dearly as I had loved my uncle Lamb, I didn’t know that I wanted to inflict either “Lambert” or “Quentin” on a helpless infant. “No, I don’t think so. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d want to name him for one of your uncles, either.”
Jamie stroked my stomach absently, thinking.
“What was your father’s name, Sassenach?” he asked.
I had to think for a moment to remember.
“Henry,” I said. “Henry Montmorency Beauchamp. Jamie, I am not having a child named ‘Montmorency Fraser,’ no matter what. I’m not so keen on ‘Henry,’ either, though it’s better than Lambert. How about William?” I suggested. “For your brother?” His older brother, William, had died in late childhood, but had lived long enough for Jamie to remember him with great affection.
His brow was furrowed in thought. “Hmm,” he said. “Aye, maybe. Or we could call him…”
“James,” said a hollow, sepulchral voice from the flue.
“What?” I said, sitting straight up in bed.
“James,” said the fireplace, impatiently. “James, James!”
“Sweet bleeding Jesus,” said Jamie, staring at the leaping flames on the hearth. I could feel the hair standing up on his forearm, stiff as wire. He sat frozen for a moment; then, a thought occurring to him, he jumped to his feet and went to the dormer window, not bothering to put anything on over his shirt.
He flung up the sash, admitting a blast of frigid air, and thrust his head out into the night. I heard a muffled shout, and then a scrabbling sound across the slates of the roof. Jamie leaned far out, rising on his toes to reach, then backed slowly into the room, rain-dampened and grunting with effort. He dragged with him, arms clasped about his neck, the form of a handsome boy in dark clothing, thoroughly soaked, with a bloodstained cloth wrapped around one hand.
The visitor caught his foot on the sill and landed clumsily, sprawling on the floor. He scrambled up at once, though, and bowed to me, snatching off his slouch hat.
“Madame,” he said, in thickly accented French. “I must beg your pardon, I arrive so without ceremony. I intrude, but it is of necessity that I call upon my friend James at such an unsocial hour.”
He was a sturdy, good-looking lad, with thick, light-brown hair curling loose upon his shoulders, and a fair face, cheeks flushed red with cold and exertion. His nose was running slightly, and he wiped it with the back of his wrapped hand, wincing slightly as he did so.
Jamie, both eyebrows raised, bowed politely to the visitor.
“My house is at your